World first for Peterhead

The world's first full-scale floating wind farm has started to take shape off the coast of Peterhead in the north-east of Scotland. The technology will allow wind power to be generated in waters too deep for the current conventional turbines which are attached directly to the seabed. The Peterhead wind farm, known as Hywind, is around 25km offshore and will comprise 5 turbines which are 258m tall (178m above sea level plus 80m beneath). The turbines will be installed in water depths of around 100m and will bring power to 20,000 homes.

By the end of the week it is expected that all six turbines will have made their way across the North Sea (pulled by tugs in an upright position) and be ready for installation. Electricity production from the Hywind wind farm is expected to start later this year. The Hywind video on the BBC website Hywind video on the BBC website is an interesting description of the project.

The Hywind project has been in development over a number of years by Statoil, receiving consent in late 2015. Consent was also recently granted by Aberdeenshire Council for 'Batwind', an energy storage solution to be piloted by Statoil in association with the Hywind project. The installation of a 1MWh battery has the equivalent storage capacity of 2 Million iPhones and has the potential to mitigate intermittency and optimise output - improving efficiency and lowering costs for offshore wind.

In addition to Hywind, three further offshore wind farms are either under construction (1) or consented (2) off the Aberdeen City and Shire coast.

Under construction is the Aberdeen Bay European Offshore Wind Deployment Centre with the capacity to generate enough electricity for around 78,000 homes. This is expected to generate electricity from mid-2018 onwards.

Consent was also granted earlier this year for an 8-turbine floating wind farm further south, off the coast between Stonehaven and Aberdeen, which would be capable of generating enough electricity for a further 35,000 homes. Construction of this project, however, has yet to commence. This joins the MORL (East) project off the north Aberdeenshire / Moray coast which was consented in 2014 and would generate enough electricity for 700,000 homes.